The use of fire and torches that produce flames for the purpose of providing illumination is well known. Additionally, the calming and comfort that that people innately draw from watching a campfire or other moderately warm flame is widely understood and appreciated by people of all cultures. In order to take advantage of these aspects of fire, many manufacturers have offered fire pits that burn natural and/or LP gas. An example of such devices can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,289,887 to Oliver, Jr. et. al., incorporated herein by reference. Another such device is disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20070224560 to Stainrod et al. However, a problem associated with flames produced by known devices is that the flames are often blue, or they appear rushed due to the fact that they are burning a gas that is ejected from a jet. The ejected flame has little opportunity to behave like a flame from a log, and thus does not provide the ambiance created by a wood fire. Still further, fast flowing gas flames can produce inordinate amounts of heat, forcing the user to compromise and settle for a small flame in exchange for comfort and safety.
Additionally, a significant limitation of known devices that are used for burning natural gas, such as in a fireplace or in a fire pit, is that these systems are not readily customizable. Specifically, the systems have to fit within standard size fireplaces or fire pits. Thus, architects and other designers have to compromise as to the shape or size of the fireplace or pit, which may not always optimal for the architectural or aesthetic needs of the room or structure that will house the flames.
Still further, known devices typically use a single manifold, which is often a hollow ring, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 1,539,420 to Kerr, incorporated herein by reference. The Kerr asserts that an object of his device “is to group the jets in a particular way to gain the maximum heating effects within a given area without causing a malfunction in mixing and burning”. Thus, Kerr uses the hollow ring in combination with nozzles that are positioned closely to one another in order to create an area of intense heat for heating water, for example. Thus, the ring manifold of Kerr includes perforations and nozzles that release gas to be burned in a concentrated area, such as immediately below a kettle or water tank.
Moreover, the Kerr's nozzles are mounted from bosses that point the air and fuel mixture ejected from the nozzles in directions that result in a collision of the streams of air and fuel mixture ejected from the nozzles to collide with one another, and thereby create “sheets” of flames that burn blue in color.
A known fire pit system, shown in U.S. Pat. No. 9,125,516, incorporated herein by reference, uses a manifold that has a multitude of holes. The manifold is filled with gas, and then the gas is allowed to escape through the holes of the manifold. The released gas is then burned as it encounters air outside of the manifold. This approach is very inefficient in terms of the creation of voluminous flames that are visible and in terms of heat radiated from the flames. The absence of nozzles results in little control over the flow of the gas, and thus results in inefficient burning and results in small, low-volume, flames with little movement.
Another limitation of known devices is that typically they cannot be easily customized to nest into fire pits or support areas of different sizes. Still further, many gas fire pit designs use a single pad, ring-shaped, or close-looped manifold that provide a centralized flame area. This approach is inherently inefficient because it creates either a focused region of flames and a focused high-temperature region, or a large area with small flames. The large area of small flames is a product of the fact that a manifold with numerous apertures will result in rapid pressure loss along the manifold, which in turn results in small flames. The use of large number of small flames results in low brightness and a generally dull fire pit.
The use of pre-fabricated, single manifold designs has yet additional limitations. One important limitation is that they are not particularly well suited for accommodating pits of different shapes. Thus, they do not allow an architect or designer the flexibility in routing of the burner system, so as to accommodate variations in fire pit designs nor are they well suited for reliable, repeatable, installation in the field. While it is possible to link several pre-fabricated manifolds together, the use of these systems for providing decorative flame arrangements presents important problems and creates a need fora system that produces reliable connections in a repeatable manner. A decorative flame system must lend itself to predictable, repeatable assembly of arrangements, without the need for highly trained technicians.
Prior systems relied heavily on commercially available galvanized gas pipe and mating end caps. In these systems the gas pipe required the cutting of sections of pipe, and the addition of threads that accept the end caps. The pipe along with jets would then be assembled though the use of common pluming tools, such as pipe wrenches. However, this approach resulted in problems associated with marring of the surfaces of the assembly. The scars left by the tools needed to assemble the galvanized pipe systems inherently produced arrangements that with the unfinished appearance of uncovered plumbing.
Moreover, creating reliable connections and seals at the joints of the sections of pipe were concern. Installers had to rely on experience as to the adequate torque levels for the galvanized pipe connections. Additionally, the use of galvanized pipe end caps, particularly those made of galvanized steel, resulted in assemblies that were unreliable in terms of torque and resulting gas-tightness, and were aesthetically unpleasant. Specifically, the use of galvanized pipe and end caps created problems in verifying that proper amounts of torque had been applied to the sections of pipe so as to ensure a gas-tight seal. Thus it has been discovered that the use of galvanized steel tubing for creating the support sections for nozzles or jets that are used to create ornamental fire pits and displays has several significant disadvantages.
It has been discovered that the use of jets, which draw air and mix the air with gas flowing through the system, provide significant advantages over simply using plenums with apertures that allow gas to escape and burn. However, there also remains a need for an attachment of the jets to a gas distribution system that provides support for the jets, while at the same time providing an aesthetically pleasing, hermetic, routing for the flammable gas used to create the ornamental flames. One approach for providing jet support would be to weld or solder a boss to the components of the gas distribution system to support the jets. This is the approach used shown in U.S. Pat. No. 1,539,420 to Kerr, discussed above, which uses fixed bosses that support jets with relatively large side apertures to create a tight, circular pattern, of high-temperature flames. However, this approach would greatly increase the cost of the components by increasing the amount of material used to create the system, and increasing the amount of machining needed to create the bosses. Additionally, a distribution system with integral, one piece, bosses lack the necessary adaptability to allow the assembly of fire pits of various sizes and shapes. Thus systems that have plenums with bosses at pre-established, fixed, locations allow creation of arrangements that use only the fixed locations of the bosses for the mounting of jets.
Therefore, a review of known devices reveals that there remains a need for an efficient system for creating flames for use in a decorative fire pit and produce controlled ornamental flame features for architectural design use, or for use as an independent ornamental flame display.
There remains a need for a system with components that allow the user to form a variety of flame patterns in a predictable and reliable manner.
There remains a need for a system that allows the creation of a variety of flame patterns, without requiring different castings with different boss locations.
There remains a need for a system that creates tall, orange-tone gas flames of relatively low temperature, as compared with blue gas flames commonly used for cooking or soldering.
There remains a need for a system that can be used with known, widely available, gasified fuel delivery systems, and that allow the creation of a large flame area or large flame volume, with a relatively small amount of gas.
Still further, there remains a need for a system that allows the user to spread out the flame jet locations, and use the positions of the flame jets to create a voluminous flame pattern, which results in more efficient distribution of light produced by the individual jets.
There remains a need for a system that allows the user to spread out the flame jet locations, and use the jet positioning to create a voluminous flame pattern with correspondingly distributed heat or flame sources, which will result in efficient distribution of heat and light produced by the individual jets used with the system.
There remains a need for a system that allows the creation of ornamental flames along a line immediately above a pool of water.